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15 July 2010

The Photographic is an instrumental post-rock duo from Louisville, Kentucky. Guitarist, Jamey See Tai, and drummer, Chad Blevins started to play together in 2003. This is their debut album and besides guitar and drums, synths, loops and some digital processing can be found.

I've it's impossible to avoid the post-rock tag, they are different from the noisy, heavy, epic masses in the way they seems much more closer to a more discreet vein like Unwed Sailor, early Tristeza or the underestimated Silo and even hints in a more ethereal form from the energetic emotional family of Seam, Mineral, Appleseed Cast, Karate, The Player Piano and American Football. Among Jamey See's influences we can too find artists like New Order, Brian Eno or Disco Inferno, three good reasons to suspect that interesting might happen here.

Intricate but flowing emotional and almost math-rock melodies, “Pictures of a changing world” is much more subtle than your usual post-rock record. Every aspect of the songs seems to have been longly weighed up. If every song seems to have followed the same process of composition, the coherency has enough diversity to completely transport you.

Listening to The Photographic is like walking in a windy countryside, lungs full of oxygen, with an almost ecstatic state of mind, going through a pervasive melancholic mood. There are propulsive, cinematic qualities in their music in their music, with candor, a welcome freshness and innocence. It's spring music at his best, sensitive and special – even if you've heard the same kind of music already on other records, sometimes better, often not as good -, maybe it's a little bit too green at times, but they are quite young (22 & 23 years) and a few of these songs (“Directions” and “Secure”) are really deeply addictive and make you euphoric. Good debut, I expect the next one to be once step higher, one step further from the realms of conventional post-rock.